Blueberry

I have been really avoiding garment sewing and I don't know why. I hadn't even made the sewing guild challenge garment, and it is a summer dress! So I got to it. I borrowed a book on fitting and took a stab at a full bust adjustment. The tissue fitting had indicated I needed to go out and down with things. OK. I did try. Really. But it just didn't work. It would have been a lot more time and what seemed to me a hit and miss procedure.

I went to plan B. I drafted a front sloper with the same princess seaming using Pattern Master Boutique.  I laid it over the original pattern and traced a new front from the waist up. I frankentaped it together and cut it out.

Hmmm.... Should have checked the shoulder seam match first. The original pattern called for an extended shoulder forming a cap sleeve. Therefore I had a case of cap sleeve meets sleeveless dress. I rather liked the idea of a cap sleeve. So I drafted a yoke that bridged the front and back and filled in that missing fabric in front.

The yoke was a plain blue linen and I decided I should embroider it a bit, as I have this great embroidery machine and haven't done anything with embroidery yet. Some frustration later I called the Great P at the shop to tell her the machine wasn't working, the service hadn't been done, and all kinds of other things that had nothing to do with why I couldn't embroider.

I had the wrong embroidery foot selected. The Great P is so patient with me! Isn't it funny how driver error is the last thing we think of?

So I embroidered some lovely flowers and put the yokes in place. Down the stairs to DH, my best sartorial critic. He loved the dress, but didn't like the yokes. He thought they would have been better in a faux leather perhaps. I swear that man writes for Vogue. I had originally considered that, but thought it too edgy. We examined the possibilities and went with a sleeveless dress. It just meant cutting the back to reflect the front.

I love Blueberry. The pattern is actually a large knitted sweater pattern. She's a comfortable dress and seems to suit me. I am going to try more frankentaping. (Thanks to Sew Lady Sew for the franken idea).  I like patterns as they give me a design with a lot of the design parameters worked out. My software gets me a fit I can wear. I also need to finish fitting my dress form. That will complete my fitting arsenal methinks.

 Now here are the edge finishes I used. The left finish tended to stretch the edge a bit. The one on the right did not. You need to pay attention to your machine. It does try to help you out with clues.  (I'm so thrilled I recognized these on my own, after only sewing half the edges!) When I selected the stitch on the left, my machine suggested a foot that was not IDT friendly and no IDT. The stitch goes forwards and backwards, and a walking foot doesn't. The stitch on the right did work with IDT. IDT keeps the edges from stretching. The bits of paper caught in the stitches are from the pattern tracing paper I used to stabilize the fabric. Then I trimmed the edges close with my beloved duck billed scissors. Quack!